sticky toffee cake and cupcakes

Fancy cake decorating has never been my thing. If this was made in the Great British Bake Off tent Mary Berry would likely describe it as "informal", but that's ok, my presentation standards aren't high. As long as it tastes good and I get to eat a bit, I'm happy. Worst comes to worst, just stick it on a pretty plate or a cake stand.

I baked this sticky toffee cake for my uncle's 60th birthday this week, so obviously I couldn't cut into it for photographs, but I did sample a cupcake and they were utterly delicious. Sticky and sweet with squidgy pockets of dates in a brown sugar sponge. There's no point being diet conscious here. Sometimes you need to give the calories the middle finger and shove a whole damn cupcake in your mouth and delight in all the sugar.

Despite having used this recipe multiple times before (briefly mentioned here and here) it has never received its own blog post, so I thought it was high time I rectified the situation. The only change I made was to make my own toffee sauce for the topping and mixing into the icing instead of buying a tin of dulce de leche. It was incredibly thick and sticky to handle, bordering on unco-operative, but the flavour was definitely worth it.

 Look at that dripping toffee. Mmmmmmmmmmm.

Sticky Toffee cake cupcakes

Cake recipe is basically doubled quantities of Hummingbird Bakery's sticky toffee cupcakes from their "Cake Days" book. The mixture yields two 8 inch round cakes and 9 cupcakes.

Toffee recipe is from Edd Kimber's "The Boy Who Bakes" book, listed under "salted caramel sauce", although I omitted the sea salt.

For the sponge:

360g (13oz) pitted and chopped dates

360ml (13 fl oz) boiling water

160g (6oz) slightly salted butter, softened

300g (11 oz) soft light brown sugar (I subbed in some brown muscovado sugar as I didn't have enough soft light brown sugar)

4 large eggs

360g (13oz) plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

 2 tsp vanilla extract

For the toffee sauce:

150g granulated sugar

10g salted butter, softened

125ml double cream

For the icing:

160g (5 1/2oz) unsalted butter, softened

500g (1lb 2oz) icing sugar

50ml (1 3/4fl oz) whole milk

100g (3 1/2oz) toffee sauce

Place the chopped dates in a bowl, pour over the boiling water and leave to soak for about 1/2 hour. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5. Grease and line two 8" round cake tines and line a muffin tin with cupcake cases. 

Using a hand held electric whisk or a freestanding mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together until soft and fluffy. Add the eggs in one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl and mixing well on a medium speed after adding each egg. In a separate bowl sift together the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Add these dry ingredients in 3 batches to the other mixture, then mix at a medium-high speed until everything is fully incorporated. Lastly, mix in the vanilla and date mixture by hand, making sure the dates are evenly dispersed throughout the batter.

Fill the cake tins with the batter until roughly two thirds full. The remaining batter should fill approx. 9 cupcake cases. Bake the cakes in the oven for 25-30 minutes until risen and springy to the touch. The cupcakes should be baked separately as they're smaller and only take 18-20 minutes to bake. Leave to cool slightly before removing from the tins and placing onto a wire rack to cool completely before icing.

For the toffee, melt the granulated sugar over a medium heat in a medium sized heavy based saucepan on the hob until fully dissolved.  Don't stir the mixture as it will crystallise, just give it a gentle swirl every so often. Once it has turned deep golden remove the pan from the heat and carefully pour in half the cream. Be careful as the sugar will bubble fiercely! Once the mixture has settled a bit, add the remaining cream and then the butter. If your mixture is lumpy (mine definitely was) then put the pan back on the heat and stir until smooth. (Mine took quite a lot of stirring and I added in a bit more cream.)

For the icing, mix together the butter and icing sugar on a low speed (or by hand) until sandy in texture. Gradually add the milk then increase the speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy. Finally add the toffee and beat it in thoroughly to ensure everything is well mixed. Use to generously fill and top the cakes and use the remaining icing to decorate the cupcakes. Swirl the toffee on top of the icing.

Baker's note: I felt the icing was quite slack, so it may be worth omitting the milk and only adding it at the end if you feel the icing needs it.

mustard floral kim dress

Another summery By Hand London Kim dress. I'm not fed up with this pattern yet, it's so pretty! 

I didn't make any further fitting alterations as I was happy with the last one I sewed. However I've noticed since wearing this dress that the slight gapping I was getting at the front armhole of my first Kim dress is happening again. Grading up a size at the shoulders hasn't fixed the problem, although in general I think it makes the straps sit better, so I'm wondering whether some fabric needs pinched out at the armhole. Or it could just be that my fabric choice is a quilting cotton with zero give and I'm being an overly fussy bugger.

My only other fussy bugger gripe is that the bodice feels a little bit bulky. Although self lining looks swish I think the bodice would feel more comfortable with a thinner lining, such as a cotton voile/lawn. But there you go, you live and learn. It's perfectly wearable as it is. I love my dress, honest. How could I not love this dress when it brings together mustard, florals, princess seams, pockets and a full skirt. It also looks great paired with my orange cardigan. Happiness!

Crisp pintucks = more happiness

Like my last Kim dress I made absolutely no attempt to pattern match so that I could fit everything on 2.5 metres of fabric. I even managed to squeeze out pocket bags this time by piecing together the larger scraps. Excuse me whilst I feel weirdly smug about my sneaky french seamed pocket joins.

There's not much else to say about a dress I've made three times other than I doubt this will be my last Kim dress. After all my faffing about with my Prima and Emery darted bodice (which sadly still doesn't fit to my satisfaction) it feels great to have a dress pattern which I can sew without worrying about the fit and enjoy wearing the resulting dress. I think I've also come to the conclusion that I prefer the fit of princess seams to darts; they seem to work better for me.

I'm aware I will eventually have to return to the task of fitting my massive shoulder blades though. I can't keep making dresses with low backs, although it is tempting!

I'm hoping to squeeze out one more summery dress this year so I can take part in Karen's Ginghamalong. The deadline is 13th September and I'm planning to make a pink gingham By Hand London Charlie dress. I've ordered my fabric and made one bodice toile which, somewhat miraculously, fit really well straight out the packet (it also has a low back, haha!) Is anyone else taking part in the ginghamalong?

kitty kim dress

Out of all my handmade cotton dresses my favourite one by far is my By Hand London Kim dress so I thought it was about time I made a second. 

The fabric I used is a double gauze adorned with the most adorable kitties wearing glasses and bow ties. Hipster kitties! Although my fabric is probably more suited to a less structured silhoutte, I'm really happy with this dress. I like the soft, relaxed look and it feels so light and floaty to wear - perfect for summer weather. Not that you get many hot days in Scotland, but at least I'm prepared with a lovely dress when the occasion arises.

For ultimate luxury I self lined the bodice. Double gauze feels gorgeously soft against the skin so it would have been criminal not to self line. Sadly I had to sacrifice pockets as I didn't have enough fabric, but I can live with that.

This was the first time I had sewn with double gauze and although it sewed together fine it slightly scared me as the weave felt so fragile in comparison to the more robust cottons I'm used to handling. I felt paranoid about the fabric stretching out of shape so I ironed on strips of lightweight fusible interfacing at the stitching lines of the front and back necklines, waistline, around the armholes and zip before construction for extra stability. I also used a longer stitch length on my machine to minimise damage if/when I needed to unpick anything.

Although my first Kim dress is one of my best fitting cotton dresses I made a couple of extra alterations to this dress to further improve fit:

• pinched 1/2 inch out at the waistline for a slightly neater fit.

• graded up one size from the armpit to the shoulders as I was curious to see if it would correct the gapping/pulling I was getting at the front armhole and straps on the first version. The straps sit flatter against my body on this dress so grading up appears to have helped. Yay for fitting my man shoulders!

Other alterations included omitting the pintucks on the skirt as I didn't think they'd work well with this fabric. My skirt doesn't have such a full gather either as my fabric wasn't wide enough for the original skirt pattern. I also hemmed the skirt longer than I normally go for (I generally prefer skirts/dresses to hit just above my knee) as I felt the floaty nature of the fabric suited a longer length. It feels beautifully swishy to wear so that was a good decision.

I was worried that the skirt might need underlining or I'd need to wear a slip with it, but thankfully it is opaque enough not to need an extra layer. I'm also delighted to discover the fabric doesn't stick to leggings. I'm not normally a leggings-and-bare-feet-with-pumps wearer, but I'm attempting to train my ice cold feet to survive without socks or tights when it's not quite warm enough to commit to bare legs yet I want to feel summery. Bare legs *and* feet is a rare occurrence. Perhaps twice a year, haha.

I'm hoping this dress wears and washes well as I really love wearing it. By Hand London's Kim dress pattern is receiving a lot of love from me at the moment as all the horrible fitting issues I experience with my upper back/shoulder area are completely avoided due to the low back and lack of sleeves. I have already nearly finished making a third Kim dress, so watch this space. Another pretty, summer dress shall arrive here by the end of the month!

bakewell biscuits

I can't believe how little I've baked this summer. This week I felt I was starting to suffer from some sort of baking deprivation so I rectified the situation with these bakewell biscuits. If I had left it any longer my eyelids might have started twitching.

This was an incredibly satisfying bake. Whoever thought to create a bakewell tart/biscuit hybrid should give themselves a pat on the back. These are very tasty biscuits and the recipe yields a surprisingly large batch which is great for greedy people like me who rarely ever just eat one biscuit with their cup of tea. I think I ended up 26 biscuits in total (the batch, not the amount I drank with my tea.)

The recipe (which I slightly adapted) is from a Co-op magazine although I discovered it on one of my favourite baking blogs, The Caked Crusader. I'll be the first to point out that my batch turned out different looking to CC's. My biscuits spread quite a lot in the oven, I'm assuming due to my butter being very soft and my warm hands when I handled the mixture, so they lost their thumbprint indentations. They're still visually attractive and taste delicious, but I don't think they can be considered thumbprint biscuits anymore. 

The main changes I made to the recipe were swapping out the vanilla for almond extract and omitting the lemon zest and juice. I wanted the biscuits to be purely about almond and raspberry - no other flavour distractions.

The biscuits have crispy edges, slightly chewy, jammy centres and are packed with almondy goodness. It's like having a bakewell tart without needing to faff about making pastry. Basically, these biscuits make me feel very happy. My vintage embroidered tablecloth also makes me happy, even though it's a sh*t to iron.

Here's hoping it will be less than a month until my next bake.

Bakewell biscuits

175g softened butter (I used a combination of unsalted with slightly salted butter as that's what I had to hand)
175g caster sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 egg
150g ground almonds
150g self raising flour
approx. 1/2 jar good quality raspberry jam
handful of flaked almonds

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Line some baking sheets with baking parchment - at least 4 baking sheets or 2 reused/rotated.

Beat together the butter, sugar and almond extract for a few minutes until pale. Add the egg and beat well. Add the ground almonds and self raising flour and stir until everything is fully combined.

Take a heaped teaspoonful of the mixture and roll into a ball in the palm of your hands. Place the balls onto the baking sheets, spacing them well apart as they will spread. I had 8 per baking sheet. Push your thumb into the centre of each ball to create a well and spoon about 1/2 teaspoon of jam into the centre. Sprinkle some flaked almonds on top.

Bake in the oven until golden and well spread. Although the original recipe says to bake for 10 minutes, both the Caked Crusader and I found ours took longer at 16-18 minutes. Leave to cool and firm up on the trays before transferring to a wire rack/tin/your mouth.

cupcake, anyone?

Just a quick post today. I made a cupcake of the knitted variety for my friend's birthday last week (because who wouldn't want a big, knitted cupcake?!) and couldn't resist taking a couple of cute photographs before packing it up to post. I love how disproportionately massive it looks next to the crockery. It makes me giggle.

I'm so pleased that I've finally found a use for the tiny beads which have been lurking in my craft stash for many years. No cupcake is complete without hundreds and thousands sprinkles.

Somewhat annoyingly the white yarn kept going slack between my double pointed needles, no matter how tight I pulled the stitches, so the tension looks a bit weird in the "icing" section. I think the yarn was perhaps a bit too thin for the job. Thankfully the stuffing is also white so it doesn't spoil the overall effect.

I also had problems getting started with this pattern as my brain struggles to understand how to begin working in the round on double pointed needles. I always end up going backwards or somehow working inside out(?!) In the end I had to get my Mum to start then I took over after a couple of rows. Once it's established I'm fine. I'd better improve though as I'd like to knit mitts or socks next.

Edit: If you also want to knit a cute cupcake the pattern can be downloaded for free (yay!) on Ravelry. It's "Yummy Scrummy Cupcakes" by Sandra Paul.

strawberry and cream cake

After the success of last year's Wimbledon final cake I decided to make another this year. I didn't write out a recipe last time so I thought the cake was worth documenting again.

This is such a pretty, summery cake. I love the simplicity of a dusting of icing sugar and the freshness of strawberries and cream.

I also love when a filling squidges when you cut into the cake. There's strawberry jam and whipped cream sandwiched between the sponges here which makes for a satisfying squidge.

A couple of folk last time asked whether the strawberries made the sponges soggy and I think the trick to avoiding that is to keep the strawberry chunks fairly small and not to add too many. I also gave them a light coating of flour before incorporating them into the cake batter.

I don't think I have anything else new to say about the cake. The combination of vanilla flecked sponge with strawberries, cream and jam is a winner. The only bummer is that the cake needs to be kept in the fridge due to the cream filling, but then again, you may find this cake won't last longer than one sitting. It's pretty good.

Strawberry and cream cake

sponges:

200g margarine/ softened butter

200g golden caster sugar

3 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

200g self raising flour

100g strawberries, chopped into relatively small chunks - lightly coated in flour

filling:

300ml pot of double cream - lightly whipped

generous spoonfuls of strawberry jam 

icing sugar for dusting

extra strawberries for decoration

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Grease two 18cm/7 inch round cake tins and line the bases with baking parchment. In a large bowl beat together the margarine and sugar for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the eggs to the mixture one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add a tablespoon of the flour with the last egg to prevent the mixture from splitting. Add the vanilla bean paste and flour and mix everything together until fully combined. Stir in the strawberry chunks until evenly distributed.

Divide the mixture between the cake tins and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for approx. 30 minutes until well risen, light golden and spring back when touched. Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

Once cool, sandwich the cakes together with whipped cream and strawberry jam. Decorate the top of the cake with a dusting of icing sugar and halves of strawberries. 

This is best eaten on the day of serving although it will keep for a couple of days if covered and kept in the fridge.

lemon cupcakes with lemon cream cheese icing

I've baked something. It's been a while, for me anyway. I'm still obsessed with my retro juicer so I made some zingy, lemon cupcakes as an excuse to use it.

As a slight variation to my usual lemon cupcakes, I followed the Peggy Porchen method of making a sugar syrup to brush over the freshly baked cupcakes and topped them with a swirl of lemon cream cheese icing.

The syrup gives the cupcakes an extra juicy lemon punch and the addition of cream cheese to the icing calms the sweetness and sharpness. All in all, a damn tasty cupcake... providing you love lemon.

I thought this was the first time I had made lemon cream cheese icing but I see I used it a couple of years ago in a birthday cake for my Dad. It's a good job I have this blog as an archive as my memory is terrible. Looking back at that cake, I'm a bit gutted I didn't consider adding lemon curd as a filling to my cupcakes. That would have taken them to another level of lemony goodness.

My brain feels too scrambled to write anything else vaguely coherent. June has been tiring and thanks to the EU Referendum the UK appears to be in meltdown. Nice.

I have things I want to make and bake, and blogs I want to catch up with, but I'm struggling to motivate myself in the evenings at the moment. All I want to do after work is sit and watch Dance Moms (I am so obsessed, it's embarrassing) X-Files re-runs and Tattoo Fixers (bizarre considering I'm not even a fan of tattoos.) Wimbledon can also be added to the tv list since it started this week. Wayhey!

Lemon cupcake
makes approx. 15 cupcakes

cupcakes:
6oz (175g) caster sugar
6oz (175g) softened butter or margarine
zest of 2 lemons
3 large eggs
6oz (175g) self-raising flour

sugar syrup:
juice of 3 lemons
caster sugar - same weight as the juice of 3 lemons

cream cheese icing:
100g full fat cream cheese icing
100g softened butter
250g icing sugar
zest of 1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4 and line two cupcake trays with cases. In a large bowl beat together the margarine, sugar and lemon zest for 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the eggs to the mixture one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add a tablespoon of the flour with the last egg to prevent the mixture from splitting. Add the flour and mix everything together until fully combined. Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases, until 2/3 full. Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes until well risen, light golden and spring back when touched. 

Place the lemon juice and caster sugar for the syrup in a saucepan whilst the cupcakes are baking. As soon as the cupcakes come out the oven, bring the syrup to the boil on the hob. Let it simmer until the sugar has full dissolved then take the saucepan off the heat and set aside to cool slightly.

Brush the cupcakes with the sugar syrup whilst they're still hot (they absorb the syrup better this way). Once it has soaked in and the cupcakes feel warm, rather than hot, remove the cupcakes from the trays and cool on a wire rack.

For the icing mix together the icing sugar, lemon zest and butter until well combined. Add the cream cheese a little at a time then mix it all on a high speed for a minute or so until the icing is soft and smooth. Either swirl the icing on top of the cooled cupcakes with a spoon/palette knife or pop it into a piping bag. I used a Wilton 1M tip for mine and piped from the centre, swirling outwards.